


unspoken dance

by material



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Gen, Post-Season 2, When You're Trying But Even Your Best is...Not Great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23789980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/material/pseuds/material
Summary: What are sisters? Memories written over each other.
Relationships: Aelwyn Abernant & Adaine Abernant
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	unspoken dance

**Author's Note:**

> warning for child abuse; there are references to canon-typical emotional abuse and neglect.
> 
> [x](https://asterein.tumblr.com/post/186986460521/its-a-heavy-burden-to-carry)

For Aelwyn, having a sister was like having a body double. She would hit the ground, and Aelwyn would flinch. Almost like it was her. Almost like she was glad it wasn’t. 

She’d justify it like this: she _had_ to be trouble, or else it’d be Aelwyn. They’re playing sister&sister, just with the roles reversed. _Aelwyn hide! I’ll protect you!_ A six-year old version of her would say, Aelwyn’s shadow cast over her own, her figure looming behind her. Her small hands would be held out in front of her, nails chewed so low her fingertips would be red. Yet they wouldn’t tremble. And Aelwyn, in this faux memory, this scene she’d twist reality into — would be a good older sister, she’d see a child wanting to play hero, and she’d let her. It was so much easier to crouch behind a chair, to pretend to wince, to pretend to hurt. It’s not a real memory, it’s the illusion of one. Aelwyn was never scared, she was never a coward. She was simply doing what needed to be done. 

They _had_ to punish her. It was out of love, Aelwyn would think, out of love. Not that she understood that word, not that she knew what it meant. 

Love, like the word sister, like the word family, like the word sister, meant very different things for her, than they had for other people.

/

Love, if she thought of it enough, was a synonym of learn.

She sees Adaine — in a haze of pain, her body shutting down on itself, darkness crawling through her vision — her fist glowing with magic, so goddamn bright in this goddamned forest, that maniacal cross of a grin and a frown braced upon her face. When the impact hits their father, it reverberates through Aelwyn as well, knocking over the last of what had held her up. 

But at that last second, Aelwyn had learned. That blinding white shocking her system into clarity. The frown because she didn’t want to, the grin because she did. 

Love, she thought, in the vastness between planes, could just as easily be mistaken for hurt. 

/

Adaine brushes her hair dry in the mornings, with not a single care for the strands pulled out by the comb. She trances for the full four hours. She does not move unnecessarily. She wears her jacket like it’s her most prized item. She sometimes looks at Aelwyn like she’s the older sister from her memories, then something moves over her face—the rippling of water, sequences ordered chronologically—and she looks away. 

Sometimes, if Aelwyn sees the comb come away with too much white-blonde, she stalks over and snatches it from Adaine’s hand. In front of her dressing mirror, Adaine had a figurine of a plant, branches grown out geometrically. Now they host a collection of Aelwyn’s things: her hair ties, bracelets, necklaces. It’s a blue scrunchie she reaches out for, offset with bits of glitter. From the corner of her eye, she sees the reflection of their mirror scowls. Hears Adaine’s huffs over her own, as she gathers a section of her hair, gently combing her fingers through. “It’s like you don’t even care, you have to be patient with it for Gods’ sake.”

As if she couldn’t even see the irony from a thousand visions at once—Adaine says, “Hurry _up,_ I have school soon.”

Aelwyn tightens the band with more force than necessary. Adaine forces her way out from Aelwyn’s hands with more malice than necessary. The same anger flares up within both of them. They look at each other for the first time in the morning. 

Aelwyn still towers over her sister, still casts a shadow. Haughty as she is, with her arms crossed and her mouth lined in a frown — Adaine is always better than that. Braver than that. Anger burning brighter—and always, underneath it always—the goodness. _Aelwyn, I’ll protect you!_ the memory of her ripples through. Always the hero Adaine, always wanting to be the hero Adaine. She turns away, leaves the room with the door shut softly. 

For so long, Aelwyn had thought she and Adaine couldn’t be sisters. Sisters, she heard — shared rooms. They fixed each other's hair. They traded clothes. They looked out for each other. They laughed. They played. They shared food. A thousand small, inconsequential things that Aelwyn had never done, and never expected to. 

Now she and Adaine share a room. She fixes Adaine’s hair. Their clothes mix into each other’s. When Adaine trances, Aelwyn looks over at her. Watches how she breathes, the way her muscles tenses, the way they relax. Looks for the crease within her brow, holds a finger steady over the volume control over her crystal. Even when she trances, Adaine has a faint frown on her mouth.

The last one. Sisters have things in common.

Aelwyn knows she has it too—a shared permanent frown. A result of a cruel upbringing, unkind parents, a sister who did not understand the other. 

It’s during her trances, where Aelwyn is uncomfortably perched on the edge of her bed—the only place where her crystal charger can reach—when Aelwyn has no place to look but the shadowed form of her sister. It’s her hair that glows in the dark, barely brighter than the lowest screen setting on her crystal. And it’s only in her trances, when she is not dreaming at all, that the fight between Adaine’s shoulders fades. 

Aelwyn freezes so suddenly her crystal slips from her fingers. She scrambles for it, quietly swears, and when she looks back up at Adaine—she’s back to what she always was. 

In memory, in illusion, in front of her — a small Adaine, a child still. A child always. A baby sister that was never allowed to be a baby. A baby sister that’s always wanted to play hero. A baby sister that’s always had to play hero. 

Like the same shock from the forest — a blinding sensation that lasts for less than a second — Aelwyn passes out again. Knows that if Adaine hadn’t wanted to make it hurt, it wouldn’t have. 

/

Adaine chews on her nails. She fidgets with her hands. She grabs useless things out from her jacket. She rolls her eyes. Very rarely, she taps her foot. 

She does all of these things for a reason. Nervousness. Awkwardness. Ill attempts at socializing. Annoyance. Impatience. They are not unnecessary actions.

Sisters are also _opposites._

From a very young age, Aelwyn learnt to be fussy. How not to see Adaine cry because she was fixing her hair. Not noticing Adaine’s frown because her nail polish seemed chipped. Not realizing they hadn’t called her down because her lipstick had smudged on her glass. Every action, every emotion, covered up with a different one. 

So Aelwyn only moves unnecessarily. Her nails are constantly clicking against a glass. Her hair tie is coming loose, her bangs are out of place. Her lipgloss needs a touch-up, her mascara dust brushed away. She knows it bothers Adaine, how _shallow_ it all is, the constant need to _look_ at herself, adjust herself to be perfect. 

She also knows, Adaine still hasn’t understood it; only recognized it for where it came from. This _need_ to be looked at, to catch attention, however inconsequential. The favoured, favourite child, who always, always needs the attention on _her._

This is nothing in Adaine that would understand that. Not when her strongest instinct is to avoid being noticed. To be invisible, and unassuming and just not looked at.

So Aelwyn does not offer to buy her a new jacket. 

Instead Aelwyn finds patches of denim and runs them through with slivers of arcane, runic magic — old abjuration patterns, wasted on small pieces of fabric— unable to hold onto the enchantments, lines fading into almost nothing as she draws them on. But still useful for practice. She leaves them on a corner of Adaine’s desk, the stray thought of her foundation leaking onto them and smudging away the shapes.

Once they’ve been ironed onto Adaine’s jacket, in unnoticeable corners—Aelwyn says nothing, she’s messing with her earrings, too preoccupied to realize. 

/

When you bring up abjurative wards—of course the magic, like all magic comes from yourself— _but_ when you’re an abjurative wizard, when you’re dedicated to the craft—some of that magic comes from another place. It’s what makes the wards stronger, the banishment stronger, the protection stronger, when they come from an abjurer. To defend yourself from something, a part of you must understand it. A part of you must _become_ it. All magic is useless without understanding. Without empathy. 

This is the other place: something only a fragment of you will understand. Something so terrifying and so terrible, it consumes you whole. 

The truth is: Aelwyn did it before her mother had. She drowned a ship, she trapped girls, she allied with a monster. And she didn’t even have a reason as half-noble as her mother. 

Bringing back honour to a family name — calling forward a dead god might’ve been overkill, sure — but somewhere, in some twisted way, her mother had cared. More about the image of her family, than her family. Sure. More about her older daughter, than her youngest. Sure. More about herself, than anyone else. Sure. But it didn’t change that she cared. 

But that was not the part of her mother she had feared. 

For her mother, there was always a better option. Something worth more. Something always tilted to. It was not a paralyzing decision, it was a self-saving one. 

That was something Aelwyn had learnt. 

/

Memory mixes with illusion; as magic mixes with magic. 

Adaine stands behind her, mirror reflecting back a version of her that is finally taller than Aelwyn. She holds out a brush, and asks — “Will you do my hair?”

Aelwyn stands up to take it, the sisters do not touch as they exchange spots. And once again, Aelwyn stares down at the top of Adaine’s head, her tightened shoulders. The morning light does not allow for her shadow to be cast. Instead, with the mirror in front of them, Adaine’s face is in clear view. 

Aelwyn looks at her through their reflection. Adaine stares forward, the light frown, the hunched neck. As Aelwyn reaches out for a strand, fingertips grazing against the top column of her spine — she stiffens. Aelwyn stops her hand.

She looks at her own reflection, always so much bigger. Such an imposing figure looking over her sister’s back. Little Adaine, _Aelwyn, I’ll protect you!_ Adaine — sweet, baby-faced Adaine with her small hands and small shoulders. From what? Adaine asks. The truth underlying everything?

This will not be forgiveness. Aelwyn does not deserve it nor will Adaine offer it. This is something else. What are sisters? A memory written atop another. 

“You’re always ready to fight with me,” Aelwyn says finally. Catching her defeat in her own dark circles, hollowed out purple rings she can’t cover fully, regardless of how much colour corrector and concealer. She can’t move her hands, not away from her sister, not towards herself. Some ugly things cannot be hidden away.

“Have you ever given me a reason not to?” Adaine answers. A little angry, a little sad, and small. But underneath it all, underlying it always — Adaine is _good._ Aelwyn bites her lip as she looks at her sister in the mirror, but it does not change the image. The reflection of her hand comes to rest on her sister’s shoulder, and underneath it — only present in the sensation of her hand — Adaine’s shoulders loosen. 

**Author's Note:**

> You don't look back through time but down through it, like water. ([Atwood, Cat's Eye](https://eliamatrell.tumblr.com/post/184007600443/margaret-atwood-from-cats-eye))


End file.
